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Politician's pouting son on funny Christmas card is still the best

From (most) of our family, to yours: Happy holidays!
/ Source: TODAY

It’s a scenario all parents can relate to, and an Australian politician captured it beautifully in his Christmas card.

Andrew Leigh, who is a member of the Australian House of Representatives, and his wife tried posing for a family photo with their three children. But the youngest one just wasn’t in the mood — at all. (Scroll down for it.)

DAVID FOOTE

Leigh provided the story behind the photo in an email to TODAY.com back in 2015. Though his children are much more grown up now, his story is a holiday classic that deserves to bring joy to the season every year.

"We did a photo shoot with the whole family for about 20 minutes. Our 3-year-old (Zachary) enjoyed it initially, but then found it rather frustrating that we were all standing still and looking at the cameraman," he writes. "From his perspective, you can understand it: Why stand still when you can play?"

After the youngster failed to get his way, "he decided to sit down and have a bit of a sulk about it," Leigh says.

"What you don’t see in the picture was that there’s a pond behind us, and Zachary’s next trick was to walk towards it. That got us moving!"

In January 2019, Leigh addressed the hilarious photo fail in an opinion piece in The Guardian, where he talked about parenting as a politician.

"When we sent out the card, friends loved it," he writes. "People didn't want to see airbrushed politics; they preferred to know that our kids were just as grumpy as everyone else's ... Mixing kids with life can have mortifying results, yet the imperfections can be glorious."

Leigh also pointed out that being a parent and a politician is often easier for men than it is for women, talking about the difficulties of juggling work obligations and family time, maintaining a relationship with his wife, Gwenyth, and the occasional Christmas card grimace.

"Ideally, both parenting and politics should be done with a sense of kindness," he writes. "With children in your house, a politics of love looks a whole lot more attractive than a politics of hatred. You’re more attuned to the ridiculous and less inclined to take yourself too seriously. And maybe, just maybe, our youngest child will one day forgive us for featuring his grumpiness on our Christmas card."

Editor's note: This story, originally published in 2015, is still the funniest thing ever.